Never Known
by that1girl2
Summary: Sirius finds out about an enchantment the Ministry cast on Remus after he was bitten. But lifting the curse will cause something between them that neither boy had predicted... ::Hurt/Comfort/Romance :: M/M Slash ::
1. Cursed

.:x:.

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**:::Beginning Author's Note:::**

Oops, I'm writing 2nd story. Yes, it is also basically half porn.

**PLEASE:** tell me if I should keep it going, the concept is a bit weird and I haven't finished the whole thing yet so it's open to change. There will be over 10 chapters. I hope you like the preview, my 2nd chapter will be posted soon if enough people are interested in going forward.

**Story Set-up**: The boys are in their 7th year, Lily will have a larger role in this story, and it's AU in the sense that Voldemort does not exist so there's no war because HAPPY ENDING GUARANTEED! :D

**Disclaimer:** Yep, it's me. JK Rowling. You got me. (syke)

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**:::Never Known:::**

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Dumbstruck was not a term generally used to describe Sirius Black.

Idiotic, yes.

Impossible, daily.

But being dumbstruck was a state in which he rarely landed. Except on days when he'd discover something which cruelly reminded him that he was _not,_ in fact, the all-knowing genius of the universe.

And damnit, today was one of those days.

_Merlin's beard…_

How had he not realized it _before_?

There were so many hints, so many clues that he had never bothered piecing together.

None of this could be right. There's no way he could miss something this obvious.

_But then again… there were some signs…_

Sirius' grey eyes flicked up from his book and stared at the smaller boy across from him as Remus scribbled a few notes onto his essay paper, double checked the answer in the back of his book, and then bent over his parchment to formulate a paragraph.

Despite his disbelief, he realized with a jolt that it had to be true.

Growing up in a dormitory with six rowdy Gryffindor boys, there were a few unspoken rules about male sexuality that were taken as social norms. Openly insulting the most promiscuous girls, fantasizing aloud about the sweeter ones' "bad sides", and of course, laughing about the woes of going through puberty while trying to maintain a shred of public decency.

But Remus, for the entire seven years they'd known him, had never made jokes like the rest about wanking off or fantasizing. He'd appear annoyed whenever the subject of erections came up at all. Even Sirius' lewd posters of half-naked girls, while greatly appreciated by the other members of their dorm, seemed to do nothing but irritate him.

So as Sirius stared, utterly dumbstruck, at the paragraph on werewolf sexuality in the library's copy of '_Werewolves: Life Processes'_, everything seemed to snap into place like an incredible epiphany:

"_In certain countries,__ the moment a young werewolf is confirmed as contaminated, a special magical operation is preformed on their reproductive organs. As a way of containing the werewolf population and ensuring their condition is not passed onto a baby, Healers in five countries around the world cast the Delere Libidinem spell. It is classified as a spell, but some half-breed activists consider it to be a curse. Whatever classification, Delere Libidinem is an extremely complicated enchantment which, when preformed alongside the Perpetuum charm, completely eliminates all sexual arousal in the patient. While their body still develops normally through puberty, their sexual desire, lust for mates or excitement of any kind in their genitalia never occurs. This spell should not be confused with Magical Castration, but it acts in a similar way to suppress all urges to reproduce. Delere Libidinem keeps the werewolf in its prepubescent state of mind. Their thoughts are not drawn to members of society to which they would normally be attracted to, and chemicals which are usually released to stimulate sexual arousal are permanently blocked._

_For a full history of the debate over its curse vs. spell classification, see Chapter 14 Werewolves: Civil Rights Struggles_

_The five countries which enforce the spell on all newly contaminated werewolves are as follows: South Africa, Brazil, Spain, United States and United Kingdom."_

Sirius finished re-reading and continued to stare horrified at the article.

"Padfoot?"

He looked up.

Remus had sat up from his NEWT level essay on Corporeal Patronus' and was frowning at him across the table.

"What are you reading? You look terrified."

The other four jumped when Sirius slammed the book shut, almost involuntarily, emitting an obnoxiously loud THUD in the process.

Lily sighed.

"This is why I need to study with Mary…" she murmured quietly.

James shot Sirius a look of pure poison and laced his fingers tighter with his girlfriend, urging her to stay, but she shook her head and kissed him before retreating to a study nook on the far side of the library.

"Hate you," James said monotonously.

Sirius smirked and missed it when Peter reached over to inspect the book he had slammed shut.

"Werewolves life processes…"

Sirius reacted faster than James snatching up a snitch, but was still too slow to get it back. Remus, sitting next to Peter, tugged it from his hands and Sirius made the idiotic mistake of trying to get it from him in turn. As soon as he'd stood up to reach across the table, Remus looked up at him and he froze.

Although Sirius and James were the top spell casters in the school, they'd never had such a powerful secret weapon as the death stare Remus could affix on others. With one look he could paralyze them in their tracks, silence the words on their lips and on occasion reduce misbehaving First Years to tears. There was no spell in the world more powerful than the glare of those dark brown eyes.

Once he'd sat back down, Remus looked curiously at the book and then back up at Sirius, frowning.

"What's in _here_ you didn't know already?"

Sirius' throat dried up.

"Been reading 'bout little children torn to bits, have you?"

James and Peter made two identical sounds of disgust and went back to their essays.

As soon as they'd looked down, Sirius frantically made the cut-throat sign at Remus to stop him from reading onward, but the other boy just flicked the page to where Sirius' quill had bookmarked.

And froze.

With baited breath Sirius surveyed the boy across from him for what felt like eternity. There was no movement or acknowledgment his way, and no noise other than the distant clock tower tolling 5pm.

Then quite calmly, Remus cleared his throat and slowly shut the cover of the book.

He sighed quietly, almost wearily, and tucked it under his arm before standing up and slipping away into the maze of bookshelves, all without meeting Sirius' eyes.

Sirius leaned in to whisper "Be right back" to James, who was lost in Transfiguration spells, before following the sound of retreating footsteps.

His mind was reeling with this new revelation— just when he thought he'd had the boy all figured out, Moony had found yet another way to surprise him.

Had it been another boy in another life, this would have been a virtual _goldmine_ for Sirius—the jokes and blackmail this kind of secret could provide were limitless.

But this was not another boy in another life.

This was Remus fucking Lupin, and he'd spent too many years and far too much time investing in his happiness to let _this_ go unaccounted for.

He couldn't imagine—a lifetime without any of the most basic and primal of human emotions. Sirius remembered vividly what it felt like the first time he'd experienced the crashing waves of an orgasm, could remember the blood rushing in his veins when he'd come back from summer fourth year and caught sight of a beautiful blonde Ravenclaw, and remembered the feeling of being inside a girl for the first time when Allison had hitched herself over his lap on their third date and whispered in his ear _"I can't wait, I need you now_".

He'd always been under the impression that Remus was just being his usual self—shy, modest and stubbornly traditional. There were even a few nights back in 5th year when Remus had spent several evenings away in the castle, and Sirius thought he must have been shacking up with some girl. He'd certainly looked distraught after the midnight escapades had ended, and Sirius had fondly gone easy on him for a few weeks, being under the impression he was nursing a broken heart.

This blew that theory out of the water.

A hand grabbed onto his robes as he turned the corner and he felt himself dragged sideways into a hidden nook of Herbology novels.

Remus sighed through his nose. His shoulders were tense and he was hugging _Werewolves: Life Practices _so tightly that his knuckles were white. He reminded Sirius of Muggles who clung to life vests to keep from drowning in the ocean.

"You won't tell them, will you?" Remus whispered, barely audible.

Sirius blinked at him.

"No of course not—,"

"You told them last time."

"That's not the same, I was twelve," Sirius scolded. He'd been the first to discover Remus was a werewolf and had confided in James as soon as he knew.

"I don't want them to know. I don't want anyone to know."

Remus was looking at the ground miserably.

"Are you going to do anything about it?"

"I don't need to do anything about it. There's nothing harming me, and I've spent all these years as I am so I don't know anything different. I'm perfectly happy the way things are so—,"

"You _can't_ be serious!"

Remus' eyes widened and he stepped forward to clap his hand over Sirius mouth. Sirius shoved him off.

"Oh come off it, I didn't scream—," Sirius spat at him.

"You might as well have, we're in the library!" Remus hissed.

"No one can hear us, this is where I fucked Allison during break last June and even Pince didn't know about it."

Remus blanched at the word and diverted his eyes to the floor, his cheeks stained crimson.

"Sorry…," Sirius whispered, feeling ashamed. "I shouldn't have said that."

Remus chewed on his bottom lip and shook his head to say it didn't matter.

"As long as you don't mention what you found to anyone, then we're done here," he said whispered and moved to get past.

"Wait, Remus don't—," he reached out to block Remus' way.

"Padfoot, I swear if you make a scene over this—,"

"You'll dock us some points?" Sirius sneered and backed Remus up against a bookshelf.

"I'll—,"

"I can reverse it," Sirius cut in, latching on to Remus' wide, helpless eyes and trying to reassure him. "If we became Animagi, I can certainly figure out how to set you right. _Let_ me, please. I've reversed Perpetuum charms before—,"

"On _objects_, not on _people_," Remus hissed.

"There's a first time for everything mate."

Remus shook his head, staring at Sirius like he was a child blabbering about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.

"You're brilliant Sirius, but if you want something to test your skills before the NEWTs you'll need to find yourself another werewolf. I don't want to be changed. I don't want to pass my condition onto a child. I don't need you to do anything more for me than you already have."

The dinner bell rang and Sirius stepped away from him, crestfallen and slightly annoyed.

"Leave it be," Remus said firmly and handed his book back to Sirius before turning to go.

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**.:x:.**

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**~* Please review and let me know where you'd like to see this story go :) *~**


	2. Weighing Risks

Several loud groans of annoyance rent the air and Sirius tossed his book in frustration.

"Oh come _on_—"

"You've got to be _kidding_ me—"

"Can't you go to _her_ place for a change?"

Lily Evans shut the door and grinned sheepishly across the room at James, who was scowling at his roommates with indignation as if they'd all just declared mutiny on him.

"The stairs turn to a fucking slide if I go to her place, she's not even here for two nights—"

"This is the _third night this week_," their fellow Gryffindor Jacob argued from his four poster bed before wrenching the curtains shut around his mattress for privacy.

Lily caught James' eye as the others heckled him, and they smiled goofily like an old married couple before she crossed the room to his bed.

It wasn't that they didn't like Lily, or that they didn't want James to get some. But having a girl in the room—the Head Girl no less— always put a damper on their evening rowdiness. No crude jokes or late night drinking games. They were forced onto their best behavior and then had to stomach the sounds of the mattress bumping up against the headboard for a good half hour until the bloody two were done with it.

"Remus, would you be a dear and look over my Charms essay for me at breakfast?" Lily called over to him.

Remus nodded in her direction without looking up from his novel.

"Why are you wasting his time?!" James schmoozed at her. "I'm perfectly capable of editing your essays without giving it a biased grade."

Lily surveyed him impassively.

"Remus," she called out, "you think an idiot in love would ever grade me fairly?"

Remus shook his head in her direction and flipped the page.

James seemed to give up and they sunk down in bed together, a tangle of arms and feet and link-locked fingers.

Sirius noticed Remus glance up at them for a second before retreating fully behind his book.

"How's it coming with you lot?" Lily asked.

"Fine," Sirius answered from over his parchment. "You're aiming to be a Healer, right? How many NEWTs do you need?"

"A million," Lily droned.

Sirius grinned and went back to his notes.

Instead of looking over his exam papers like the others, he was still obsessed with figuring out how to break Remus from the curse he was under. According to records on the _Delere Libidinem_ curse, there were no recorded cases of werewolves who had reversed the enchantment. This didn't really surprise him since Remus was a rare exception among the notoriously uncivilized werewolf population.

So with nothing else to go on, he had turned his sights on other permanent enchantments.

To break the slumber of a victim of the Draught of Living Death, a complicated potion involving salamander blood and lionfish spines had to be administered to the lips. To reverse a Deafening Curse, a sequence of spells similar to those used during the breaking of a _Perpetuum_ Charm was used but usually only by a certified Healer. And to bring a Petrified person out of their coma, an elixir made from the root of a grown Mandrake was made and sprinkled on the patient while performing _Cor Relancer _immediately after.

Sirius sighed irritably and rubbed the frown line between his eyebrows.

It would take up a good chunk of his studying time to try his hand at any of these. And he still wasn't sure Remus would go along with it.

He glanced over at the boy.

Remus had shoved his face so hard into his book trying to ignore James and Lily that only his ears were visible, a faint blush staining the back of his neck in the candlelight.

Sirius shook his head in exasperation and snatched up a piece of parchment.

"_Moony- You know maybe if you were interested in girls you wouldn't be so put off by Lily coming to visit." _

Sirius tapped the paper once with his wand, turning it into an origami swan which fluttered softly over to Remus' bed and perched itself on the top of his book.

Remus' head withdrew from his novel, blinking at the paper before snatching it up and skimming his eyes over the note.

Sirius grinned when Remus shot him a disgusted look and hastily scribbled a reply back to him.

James and Lily were too lost in each other to notice the paper swan flying back and forth between their beds.

"_Padfoot- I told you to drop that nonsense. How would you feel if your meddling ended up with me getting a girl pregnant someday?"_

Sirius scoffed.

"_Moony- Well that's completely beside the point, just because you __could__ get a girl pregnant doesn't mean you ever __will__. It's called birth control, welcome to the 70's." _

Remus shook his head at the note.

"_Padfoot- It doesn't matter. If there's even the slightest chance, I'd rather not risk it. It's not fair to society, I take precautions not to bite anyone and this is a precaution not to impregnate someone—both would result in passing along my condition to an innocent_."

The little paper swan had a bent wing by the time Sirius had scratched his reply and folded it haphazardly back together.

"_Moony- If you want to talk to me about fairness, how exactly is it fair that you go through the most excruciating pain every month and yet it's completely fine with you that they take away any pleasure you would get from being with a girl?"_

Remus snatched the note out of the air, obviously annoyed and trying desperately to ignore the growing noises coming from James' bed. Peter and their other roommates had given up entirely and retreated behind their curtains in annoyance.

"_Padfoot- Hasn't it occurred to you that it might be even __more__ painful for me to be interested in a girl, fall in love with her, and want to be with her forever but then find out that she can't stand to be with me because of my lycanthropy? I'm guessing you haven't. So don't you dare talk to me about "pain" when you don't know the bloody half of it." _

Sirius was struck dumb for a moment after reading the latest note but then a particularly intimate noise from the other side of the room made him look up in disgust at James' bed.

Lily was lying on her back, grinning wickedly up at her boyfriend and signaled towards the curtains, urging him to shut them. He kissed her nose softly and then reached out, pulling the curtains around them and giving Sirius a small waive goodnight before disappearing from sight.

In spite of himself, Sirius found himself grinning in bemusement at how James had finally snagged her—all that flirting and obnoxious lovesickness had finally resulted in success.

As annoyed as he usually was by their public displays of attention, he was still stupidly happy for his best mate, who had confided in him just one month ago that he'd given her a promise ring and planned to move in together after graduation.

Sirius was going back to his next note when he realized he wasn't the only one who had seen.

Remus was staring at the shut curtains around James' bed with an odd expression on his face, his arms hugging his knees tightly to his chest. There was something sad and miserable about him, and he sighed before folding his novel shut.

With a jolt Sirius realized he must be getting ready to sleep, so he scribbled his final note as fast as he could.

Remus was just about to blow out his lantern when the paper swan fluttered back over and landed on his sheets.

"_Moony- Of course it's occurred to me— getting your heart broken is a risk we all take, but it's one of those things where the benefits outweigh the risks. I'm not saying it's going to be easy or painless, but look at James and Lily—don't you want to find someone who makes you that happy for the rest of your life? …"_

Remus stared at the note for a long time. Sirius could practically _see_ all the raging arguments going through his head, all the things he'd tried over the years to convince Remus of what he was not—that a monster like him didn't deserve to be happy, that removing himself from society was for the best, that no father in the world would want his daughter to end up with a disgusting werewolf like him.

He knew it was what Remus was thinking because it was what Remus _always_ thought of himself. He and James and Peter had spent years trying to convince Remus otherwise, and now the only thing Sirius could do was hold his breath and hope that all the times he had told Remus how brilliant he was would pay off.

And finally, it seemed that it did.

Maybe it was seeing how happy James and Lily were together. Maybe it was the echoes of their voices over the years coming back and urging him that he was just as deserving of a normal life as any other wizard. Maybe it was that deep down Remus was tired of feeling left out in yet another way from the rest of them.

Whatever it was, Remus bit his lip and nervously looked over at Sirius in the fading candlelight, and nodded, mouthing "Okay" at him.

Sirius grinned madly and pumped his fist into the air.

Remus couldn't help smiling back and shook his head tiredly. He made to crumple up their note and throw it out but Sirius waved at him and pointed twice at the parchment, whispering across the room _"Flip it over!"_

Remus frowned and slowly un-crumpled their note before turning it over to read the small message scribbled on the back.

"… _And besides, if you ever __do__ go out with a girl who dumps you for being a werewolf, I swear to Merlin that I will personally hunt her down and hex her fucking face off."_

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***~Please review! Iwillloveyouforeverrrr and I usually update early if I get a lot :)*~ **


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